Base of Operations: Tir fo Thuinn (ďLand Under The WavesĒ) in
the cosmology of Otherworld, formerly Ynys Fanaw (modern Isle of Man near
England)

First Appearance: Thor I #386

History: Leir is the son of Elathan, Ruler of the superhuman
extra-dimensional race of beings known as the Fomore, and Gaea, the primeval
goddess of earth, in her role as Danu, the Celtic earth-mother. Although the son
of a Fomorian god, Leir and his siblings were of the first generation of
Danaans, the Children of Danu, who rose up to wrestle control of
Eire (Ancient Ireland) from the Fomre. Clashing on the field of Magh Tuiredh, the Danaans were
successful in deposing the Fomore and gaining control of Eire, but Bres, Leirís
half-brother, who was half-Fomore, decided to turn his allegiance back to the
Fomore and turned Eire back to his fatherís relatives. The Danaans were
stripped of their godhood and forced to till the earth in service to the Fomore,
but Lugh, son of the god, Cian (not to be confused with Lugh, son of Gwydion and
Arianrhod), once more lead the Danaans against the Fomore. Regaining their
godhood, the Danaans defeated Bres and the Fomore who were once again exiled
from Eire.

After the defeat of the Fomore, Leir became one of the leaders of the
Danaans who lead Eire to greater prosperity than before. They became gods
worshipped by the Celts of the British Isles and Gauls of Western Europe from
the Ninth Century BC to Sixth Century AD. While most of the Danaans resided in
the other-dimensional realm of Avalon, one of the seven worlds in the cosmology
of Otherworld, Leir claimed the realm known as Tir fo Thuinn, one of the
worlds of Otherworld. For ages, enmity existed between the Celtic Gods and the
Asgardian Gods since the Viking and Germanic tribes invaded the lands of the
Celts and Gaels.

Eventually, the Milesian tribes lead by their eponymous leader Milesius
entered Eire seeking to conquer the indigenous Celts. Claiming the area by
clever deceit, the Milesians refused to honor worship rites of the Danaans. Leirís
brother, the Dagda, willingly stepped down as ruler of the Eire and divided the
land into five areas for his sons to rule equally. Eire was divided into the
areas of Ulster, Connacht, Munster and Leinster: Oenghus received Ulster, Oghma
received Connacht, Mider received Munster and Bodb Dearg received Leinster while
the Dagda set aside Meath for himself. Heremon of the Milesians was the first
mortal king of Eire (this stands to be debated as there were earlier unnamed
mortal kings of Eire before the Fomorians). Upset over being omitted in the
division of Eire, Leir broke off contact with the Danaans and retreated to Sidh
Fionnachaidh (modern Armagh County, Northern Ireland). His wife, Penardun,
reportedly died sometime later, and Bodb Dearg, hoping to prevent further
tension, approached him and invited him to accept one of his mortal foster
daughters, Aobh and Aoife, as a wife. Leir eventually chose Aobh, the eldest
daughter, to marry and they had two sons, Hugh and Conn (not to be confused with
Conn, grandfather of Cormac), and two daughters, Fiachtra and Fionnula. Hugh
became king of Ulster and father of Queen Macha, one of the most notorious of
the Queens of Ireland.

Aobh eventually passed away and
Leir took her sister, Aoife, as a wife, but she began to grow jealous of his
attention to his mortal children. Fearful of the results if she killed them, she
instead lured them to Derravarragh Lake in County Westmeath and used mystical
means to transform them into swans. Because her spells were incomplete, Leirís
children retained their voices and memories. Aoife then fled to Bobd Deargís
hall in Munster claiming Leir had treated her unfairly. Bobh Dearg, however,
sensed the truth and invited Leir to his domain to discern the truth. Along the
way, he came across Fionnula in her swan form who told him what had happened.
Unable to change her back, he confronted Aoife with her crime and sent her into
exile. Bobh Dearg transformed her into a raven and bound her into servitude
under Morrigan, Queen of the Celtic Gods. Unable to undo the effects of the
spells that transformed Leirís children, Bobh Dearg revealed that that were
bound to be swans for nine hundred years or until peace came by a princess of
Munster married into the house of Connacht. He then added to Aoifeís spell to
protect Leirís children as swans by cursing anyone who tried to kill them.

Leirís
attention over the years eventually turned to Britain, and he seduced Iweriadd,
daughter of King Ludd of the Britons (in some texts, she is erroneously named Penardun
after Leirís first wife). She gave birth to Bendigeid Vran (later named Bran),
a mighty hero who fought against the Roman armies of Julius Caesar invading
Britain, and Branwen, whose great beauty inspired the Irish chieftain Matholwych
to desire her as a bride. Bran became an ancestor of King Arthur, and Branwen became
a goddess amidst the Danaans after being treated badly by Matholwych as a
mortal.

In 649 AD, King Maenach of Munster encountered Leirís children as swans
returning to Derravarragh Lake in County Westmeath and sought them as gifts for his sister,
who was marrying Laidgren, King of Connacht. Because this was one of the
conditions to restoring them to human form, the children of Leir regained their
human forms shortly thereafter, but upon becoming mortal again, they succumbed
to their great age as mortals. Only Fionnula lived long enough in order to
reveal their identities and provide funerary instructions to Maenach. After
their deaths, St. Patrick converted them posthumously into the Christian
religion.

The Dagda
was soon informed by Odin, Ruler of the
Asgardian Gods, of the Third Host of the
Celestials, alien beings of inconceivable power who had influenced the evolution
of the Earthís human race, and of their intention to judge humanityís
worthiness to survive when the Fourth Host came. The two monarchs then met with
the ruling gods of Earthís other pantheons to set a course of action. (This
group of the ruling gods of Earth later became known as the Council Elite and
would gather several times in later years to discuss threats to Earth and the
gods of earth as a whole.) Odin, Zeus
and Vishnu the Preserver of the Hindu gods
confronted the Third Host, which threatened to seal off the inter-dimensional
passages between the gods realms and Earth unless the gods interfered with the
Celestialsí activities for a millennium. As a result, the Celtic gods were
forbidden from further trafficking with mortals. Leir retreated from Earth
begrudgingly, but he never quite accepted the Asgardians as equal to the
Danaans.

In recent years, Seth, the Egyptian god of the dead, dispatched beasts
resembling black winged lions (griffins) to ravage the countryside of Avalon.
One of these beasts was also sent to Asgard where it slew a defenseless family.
Before dying, the last member of the family asked the thunder-god Thor to avenge
their deaths. Thor pursued the beast into an inter-dimensional portal into
Avalon. There a number of the members of the Celtic Gods accused Thor of
responsibility for the killing of a family of farmers when in actuality the
beast was responsible for those deaths. Leir arrived and battled Thor. Thorís
ally Hogun the Grim followed Thor through the inter-dimensional portal to offer
his help. Leir and Thor then saw the winged beast and Leir then realized it was
the beast that had done the killings, not Thor. Together, Leir, Thor and Hogun
battled the creature and the creature fled mortally wounded through the portal.
Leir remained in Avalon while Thor and Hogun returned to Asgard.

Back in Asgard,
they discovered that Fandral and Volstagg had slain the beast as it
returned. Leir, however, now believed that he owed Thor a debt for
helping the Celtic Gods against the winged monster. He eventually led an army of
the greatest warriors among the Celtic Gods to Asgard to help the Asgardians
against the invading armies of the god Seth. Claiming he was responding to the
distress cry of the Enchantress over the death of Heimdall, Leir heard from
Balder that Thor might have fallen in battle against Sethís armies, which all
the more provoked him to battle the minions of Seth. During the course of
battle, he became impressed by the power of the Asgardians and the passion of
their plight to defend Asgard although he nearly came to blows with Tyr, the
war-god on a few occasions. Aided by Caber (formerly Lugh, the son of Cian),
Leir was successful in repulsing Seth and his armies from Asgard and departed
with a new truce between their personal pantheons.

After thwarting an attack on
Avalon by a creature sent by the Fomorians, Leirís temper soon got the best of
him and he stormed off to their village for revenge. Unbeknownst to him, The
Dagda sent Caber to tag along. When he reached the village, Leir discovered
Caber and they got into an argument, but the villagers quickly surrounded them.
The Dagda and several others of Avalonís warriors watched the battle until
Leir and Caber started to get a little worked up. Not wanting casualties, Dagda
sent a large swarm of bees onto the battlefield. Luckily for Caber and Leir,
they were fast enough to outrun the swarm and returned to Avalon. Later that
evening, The Dagda explained his interruption in the battle saying that none of
his people were killed so there was no point for any of the Fomorians to die.

Eventually, Leir decided that he wanted a mate again and upon recalling the
Asgardian goddess Sif, he chose to abduct her as a bride. He requested that The
Dagda locate Asgard which at that time was left adrift after being severed from
Earth and to open a portal to
Asgard that he may revisit it. Once the Dagda realized why Leir wanted him to
locate Asgard, the Dagda started to close his portal, but Leir jumped through
it. Fearing war, Caber rushed after him. Leir appeared in Sifís bedchambers as
she heard him plight his love to her. Caber, meanwhile, eavesdropped as long as
he could until he was confronted by the Warriors Three and forced to defend
himself. Knocked to the floor by Volstaggís girth, Caber looked up as Sif
appeared with Leir and reported that she had accepted his proposal of marriage
that he defeat a champion of her choosing. Believing Sif to be referring to
Thor, Leir and Caber accompanied her to Earth, but having not visited it in
millennia, he attacked a taxi cab and Sif had them adopt mortal disguises. They
trailed Thor to the boundaries of the Black Galaxy and back to Asgard where they
protected it from Surtur and Ymir. With the danger passed, Leir engaged Thor in
battle over Sif, but Sif declared herself her own champion and confronted Leir
in battle herself. Humiliated by the turn of events, Leir and Caber subsequently
returned to Avalon.

Known Superhuman Powers: Leir possesses the conventional physical
attributes of the Celtic Gods. Like all members of his race; Leir is extremely
long-lived (although not immortal like the Olympian Gods). He has not aged since
reaching adulthood and cannot die by any known conventional means. He is immune
to all known terrestrial diseases and is invulnerable to conventional injury. If
wounded, his godly life force would enable him to recover with superhuman speed.
It would take an injury of such magnitude that it dispersed a major portion of
his bodily molecules to cause him a physical death. Even then, it might be
possible for the Dagda or a number of gods of equal power working together to
revive him. Leir does have some superhuman strength and his own Danaan
metabolism gives him far greater than human endurance in all physical
activities. (The flesh and bone of the Celtic gods is about three times denser
than similar human tissue contributing to the Celtic Gods superhuman strength
and weight). Leir is also extremely resistant to injury by conventional means
and his godly metabolism gives him superhuman endurance in all physical
activities.

Leir also has exceptional powers in manipulating elemental powers such as
storms and lightning possibly at a level equal to that of Zeus or Thor. He can
generate electrical energy in the form of a lightning from his hands, and create
shapes out of it such as spears and shields. Thrown with his superhuman
strength, these spears can shatter any substance and explode on impact.

Abilities: Leir has exceptional skills in unarmed combat and can
defend himself with swords and weapons conjured from lightning.

Comments: This bio involves Leir and his appearances in the Marvel
Universe; he has yet to appear in the DC Universe.